July 3, 2006

Some countries already monitor text messages

According to the Contra Costa Times "several repressive governments are reading along, texting back and even editing messages -- with the help of North American companies".

... "The article claims self-censorship of cell phones and text messaging -- is not new to North American companies and implies that predictive text technologies plays a role.

"Some (manufacturers selling phones) into particularly restrictive regions with censorship regulations have asked for a secondary scrubbing of the language databases to make sure all profanity is removed," AOL spokeswoman Erin Gifford. said.

"A major customer of ours asked for the language database to be rechecked, likely to be in compliance with Russian regulations."

In an earlier article, The ContraCosta Times reports that in China, forbididen words include "Taiwan" or any statements regarding democracy.

The Chinese government can slow down the text message system to filter and spot what it considers subversive messaging, said Julien Pain of the press freedom group Reporters Without Borders.

The People's Republic of China started screening text messages in 2004 after word of the SARS outbreak spread via cell phone in spite of little local media coverage."